Answer by Rowland Mtetezi for Removing an activity from the history stack

It is crazy that no one has mentioned this elegant solution. This should be the accepted answer.

SplashActivity -> AuthActivity -> DashActivity

if (!sessionManager.isLoggedIn()) {
    Intent intent = new Intent(context, AuthActivity.class);
    intent.setFlags(Intent.FLAG_ACTIVITY_NO_HISTORY);
    context.startActivity(intent);
    finish();
} else {
   Intent intent = new Intent(context, DashActivity.class);
   context.startActivity(intent);
    finish();
}

The key here is to use intent.setFlags(Intent.FLAG_ACTIVITY_NO_HISTORY); for the intermediary Activity. Once that middle link is broken, the DashActivity will the first and last in the stack.

android:noHistory="true" is a bad solution, as it causes problems when relying on the Activity as a callback e.g onActivityResult. This is the recommended solution and should be accepted.